Workshop
Alright, I promised so here's an update on my workshop today. I think it went well and it wasn't as hard to sit and listen to your story being torn apart as I feared it would be. People pointed out weak spots that I was aware of as well as a few that I wasn't, but they also complimented my style and my diaolgue and stuff so that was nice. The teacher, I swear, gets more annoying every week. He has this very definite and somewhat narrow idea about what fiction is and refuses to really acknowledge anything else...it's kind of difficult having to discount half of his advice about writing. I personally don't like the kinds of stories he does. He calls them "literary fiction" which seems to me like the modern art of fiction, the kind you look at funny and wonder why it sells for so much money. You know what I mean, those "artistic" stories that aren't about anything. I suppose there's merrit in them, but you can't read them for enjoyment and then what's the point of reading? Oh well... Being workshopped was much less scary than I had anticipated, which is good since I have to do it again in two weeks. Ugh, that reminds me that I have a story due a week from today and only have a vague outline written down by hand. I better start typing something up tonight instead of watching Tea with Mussolini like I was thinking of doing...I don't know when I'll have time again until Sunday night.
A few of you have asked me about reading some of my stuff...let me try to find an excerpt that's not too incriminating. :) And none of the characters are Mary Sues, I promise.
To set the scene, Maggie and Sarah are almost finished with high school and Maggie is at Sarah's house helping her write a paper for English class.
The girls entered the kitchen and let the screen door slam hard behind them, too old to admit it, but still taking the same pleasure from the sound that they had as children. The kitchen was a small cozy room, where Sarah’s family spent most of their time, with dark wood cabinets and a blue country decor. A piece of needlepoint reading "Home is Where You Hang Your Hat" was hung on the wall near a wooden cut out of a duck. Maggie knew this room almost as well as her own mother’s kitchen, which was much cleaner and less lived-in with its sparkling white counter tops and the table kept free of all objects between meal times. Sarah went to the refrigerator and got two more Cokes for them, popping the cans open and trying to find a place to set them down among the many books and papers that littered the kitchen table.
"Thanks," Maggie said automatically as she picked up her friend’s paper again. She tucked her unruly brown curls behind her ears and folded one long jeans clad leg under herself in the chair before picking up a red pen and turning her attention to the essay. "Why did you chose the lawyer again?" she asked after a moment.
"I thought he was interesting," Sarah answered with a shrug. "He’s got that weird OCD thing about washing his hands and he deals with all those criminals. Besides, I didn’t want to pick a character that everyone else would write about, it’s no good being compared to a paper by a better student."
*****a little later Sarah's dad walks Maggie home (I'm leaving out the stuff in between because it's bad...)
"Trust me," he said confidentially. "An older more experienced man is the way to go."
They had reached Maggie’s driveway by now and she dropped her half finished cigarette onto the paved road, grinding it out with the toe of her sneaker. "I’ll keep that in mind," she said. "Thanks for walking me, good night."
"I’ll stand here and watch you to the door."
Before she left, Maggie looked up at Mr. Jacobs and just for a moment caught a strange gleam in his eyes under the street lamp. It was gone before she could register what it meant and she turned and walked across the grass to the front door, letting herself in with her key.
It was dark and quiet in the O’Connor’s house and Maggie was glad not to have to deal with her mother before going to bed. She climbed the stairs to her room and switched on the light after closing the door behind her. Her room was on the front of the house overlooking the street, but the shades had been drawn earlier and she didn’t bother looking out before going to the dresser and taking out the over sized t-shirt that she preferred to sleep in, glad it was clean.
In the street outside, Bill Jacobs slipped into a shadow across from Maggie’s house and watched the light go on just as he had known it would. He could see her shadow moving back and forth on the other side of the shade and drew calmly on his cigarette as he waited for her to change. By the time he finished exhaling he knew that her jeans had been discarded carelessly on the floor and he almost cried out when she pulled her tank top over her head, her outline on the window coverings enough to tell him she’d worn nothing underneath. All too soon for his liking, the girl pulled something else over her head and her figure disappeared from his view except for her long shapely legs which he watched closely as she walked toward the door and exited the room. The show over, Bill turned and walked home.
On her way to and from the bathroom, Maggie could hear the unmistakable bleeps of Super Mario Brothers coming from Rick’s bedroom. Her parents had decided to name Maggie and her brother after their paternal grandparents, who died in a car accident the month before Maggie was born. Rick’s real name was Patrick and he despised it with a passion, for reasons no one understood, so he had quickly shortened it as soon as he was old enough to speak. Rick was fourteen and as different from Maggie as night from day; he definitely took after the O’Connor side of the family in looks as well as interests. He was a "good ol’ boy" of the old school: hunting, fishing, camping, driving big trucks with oversized wheels, these were the things Rick chose to fill his free time and the very things Maggie couldn’t wait to get away from. She knocked on the door and told him to go to bed, upon which Rick informed her that she smelled like smoke.
Maggie shrugged, "If Mama asks, I’ll tell her it was Mr. Jacobs. She knows he smokes."
"She knows you do too," her brother answered, almost challengingly.
"Then she can get over it. Go to bed."
Rick pulled himself up to his full height, which was currently just one inch more than Maggie’s and rapidly increasing, and put a serious look on his face. "Just watching out for you. Isn’t that what brothers do?"
"Older brothers," she informed him as she started to walk away. "Good night."
"Night," he grunted, going back into his room. It took all of about two seconds before the electronic music could be heard again.